Artifice Page 44

Oh, Deacon, who could resist your sweet, gentle killer-android smile? And yes, Jeff is a boxers man. Knowing is half the battle.

And speaking of sweet, we have some very adorable new Fan Art from Kelsie—”Jeff’s Fantasy”. Thank you, Kelsie!

Special thanks go out to long-time supporters Esperanza V. & Steven H. & Mark H. & Steve M. (all four donating for the second time in a row!), Annalisa C. (donating twice in one week!), Erin H. & Brittany H. (both donating for the fourth time in three weeks!), Larisa V. (donating for the 4th time in a row!), Christina K. (donating for the 6th time in a row!) and Laura Beth W. (donating for the ninth week in a row! OMG!) and please let me extend a warm welcome and a grateful bow to new supporters Megan D., Rebecca L., Adriano B. and Pierre N. for their generous donations over the last few days!

Big hugs to long time friend Michele M. (donating for the 2nd week in a row!) and also to new friend Monique P. for their generous $25 donations!

And an android-strength hug, leaping cheer, high-five and a sincerely humble bow to new friend Jennifer B. for their whopping $50 donation! WOW!

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, in addition to helping me to make possible each of these pages in a very real way, your donations are huge morale boosters for Winona and me. Thank you all so, so much!

And, thanks to your previous donations, there’s a new bonus page—Page 45!—that will be posted this Wednesday, November 2nd! (Unless something else—that for the sake of my fragile constitution shall not be spoken of here—happens before 11:59 PM PST on Sunday, October 30th… Then it might be posted earlier…..) Either way, I hope to see you for Page 45!

DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! You are UNSTOPPABLE! 😀 The donation bar has hit (and exceeded!) the target and so we will have three pages next week! Page 45 on Monday, Page 46 on Wednesday and then our regular update on Saturday, Page 47! I don’t know if I’ll be able to do this again, but for this one special occasion all I can say is whee! What fun!

In other news, I managed to really hurt my back on Thursday and it’s getting worse. I’ve never had back trouble before so I’m not sure what the recovery is going to be like. (Off to Urgent Care shortly.) But I’m in a fair amount of pain so being on the computer is a bit difficult. So, I might not be as present in the comments today as I sometimes am, but I am reading them on my cell and your kind words are greatly cheering me up. So thank you!

UPDATE ON YOUR BUDDY ALEX, 10/29 11:50 PM PST: Well, I spent the first part of the day curled up in a whimpering ball of pain, but I was able to get into Urgent Care and with the help of a muscle relaxant, an anti-inflammatory and Vicodin (another first for me), I am happy to say that I am very, very sleepy, but also finally pain-free. And this makes for a much, much happier Alex.

But not so happy as reading all your comments have made me! Yes, computer work is still a challenge, but throughout the day, I’ve read each and every comment and they’ve been a huge bright spot in any otherwise very challenging experience. I really appreciate the well-wishing (and that very sweet fan-art from Aikka!)—all of which has cheered me up a lot. There’s so much I’d love to chime in on—the seme/uke discussions, the questions of consent and power in what’s going on, your kind words about the pacing of what’s happening, whether we’ll get to see cosplay/fanart depicting Sawyer’s Deacon-look-alike-husband with Jeff—but right now, I’m just going to have to take pleasure in the fact that we have the smartest, coolest readers in the world who seem to be totally getting what we’re trying to do here. And that’s indeed a lot of pleasure.

In terms of whether this injury will keep me from posting up the Monday, the answer is “Hell, no!” There’s still a bit of work for me to do on it to get it ready, but you all mean the world to me, so even if I have to type in the word balloons with a pencil in my teeth, I will have it ready for you.

Thank you again for all your kind words and support. You are all the best medicine a creator could hope for. Together, I really do believe we can manufacture a brighter tomorrow. 😀

If you particularly enjoy any of these pages and use Facebook, please click the Like button on that page. It’s useful to know what’s working and it helps me get the word out!